It seems expectable that the most advanced, top manufacturing countries would be the main sources of pollution.
However, say, Scandinavia and Germany do make efforts to correct their unavoidable harm.
I’m really stumped as to why you would think this. We all get our pollution tests for our vehicles here in Illinois. I live in a neighborhood where there have been many complaints about local companies spewing out legal pollution. I really doubt most people think of pollution as an inherently illegal activity.
I got the top 4, although I thought the US and India would be flip-flopped.
Really? I would never have assumed that pollution means CO2 and only CO2. Why not say “top 10 worst CO2 emitting”?
This seems to be a very dangerous list taken at face value. CO2 should not be viewed as the end all be all of pollution and treating it as such takes priority away from far more dangerous pollutants. CO2 is something every living thing on the planet is used to dealing with. I’d much rather be in a room with too much CO2 than Methane, Carbon Monoxide, Sulfur dioxide or any number of other chemicals.
Well, that’s because you are just naturally smarter than I am, John. 
Honestly, if you watched the video you can see the title just as I did. I assumed, correctly in this case though obviously non-intuitively, that it was about CO2 emissions, not general pollution or some other type of pollution…though, as I said, he does briefly talk about it. It’s not a really in-depth look at the subject…I have other science oriented channels I follow for that sort of thing. It’s just a light video that I thought would make an interesting platform for discussion on which countries folks guessed would be in the list. Since it’s confusing some and bringing out the pendant in others as well as people who want to parse the question to be ‘fair’ (by which I assume they don’t like some of the countries on the list and think it should be modified in various ways to come out the way they want it too), I’ll leave it there.
I would expect that to be the trend.
In the Top 5 I got 1 and 3 ----- I reversed us and Russia. I am a little surprised at Germany and Canada making the list. I thought more of Canada at least.
I figured USA, China and India would be on the list for sure. Was surprised by Saudi Arabia.
Pretty much guesses all the countries though not the order. Why are people surprised that the planets most populated countries, largest industrial powers and fossil fuel producers are on the list?
What the fuck does that mean? We have really cold winters and have a scarce population spread over thousands of kilometres.
I don’t think anyone is surprised by the US, China, Japan, Russian Republic and India. Even Germany makes sense. I was personally surprised by Iran, Saudi and Canada. On reflection South Korea should not have been a surprise, but it wasn’t on my list.
I’m doing this without reading posts past the OP. I’m assuming it’s strictly how much pollution is being produced without weighing factors like relative population size.
China
United States
Russia
India
Brazil
Japan
Nigeria
Mexico
Indonesia
Malaysia
eta: Well, I started out strong but really faded in the second half.
Here is an ACTUAL list of the 10 worst polluting countries.
In case anybody wants to try to guess:
[spoiler]10. Bahrain – 57 ug/m3
9. India – 59 ug/m3
8. United Arab Emirates – 61ug/m3
7. Mongolia – 64 ug/m3
6. Egypt – 74 ug/m3
5. Iran – 76 ug/m3
4. Bangladesh – 79 ug/m3
3. Afghanistan – 84 ug/m3
2. Qatar – 92 ug/m3
- Pakistan – 101 ug/m3[/spoiler]
From the time I spent there over the years, the people I met just seemed more aware of pollution and environmental concerns; that’s all. I expect certain levels based on weather and population but hardly to a Top Ten level.
From your OP: “Can you 'dopers guess the top 10 without doing a search or watching the video?” We were supposed to guess before watching the video. That’s why it’s confusing.
That’s a list of the 10 worst polluted countries, and that list sounds about right to me, too, as does the top 10 polluting countries list. It’s not nitpickery–it’s measuring two different things. You can create a lot of pollution without actually being very polluted yourself (because of landmass.)
What he said. Alberta is a really interesting case; in Western Canada (where winters are quite harsh and long), we heat our homes almost exclusively with natural gas. Our government here in Alberta has seen fit to impose a Carbon Tax on what is an essential product that we need to stay alive. We also make the majority of our money as a province from the oil sands. All that said, there are a whole lot of Albertans who are very concerned about our environmental impact. This is not a simple discussion to have - tell Albertans to not heat their homes in winter, and stop making money from our biggest industry?
If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I’ll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.
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